Speaking to
The Hello Sport Podcast in a tell-all interview, the now
retired Sea Eagles legend relived how money got in the way of solid
friendships, ending one of the club’s most successful eras at the
hands of the board.

A young Cherry-Evans or repaying loyalty to club great Glenn
Stewart? That was the onerous choice on their hands.

The board could have met halfway, but youth was the road they
took.

‘’The board were showing favouritism, one side of the board who
was in charge was Quantam back then, they sort of loved the younger
guys. There was a whole range of younger blokes but they really
took a liking to Cherry-Evans,’’ Watmough said.

"After 2011, Dessie (Des Hasler) left and so I sort of heard
whispers, well it wasn’t whispers, it was on the back page of the
f*** paper (DCE demanding more money). We had a team meeting, I
told Chezza to stay back and I said, ‘hey mate what’s this we hear
about what we’re reading in the papers?’

"I said, ‘mate you just signed a f*** four-year deal, you turn
up to training’. He (DCE) goes, ‘nup, my manager told me not too
(turn up to training unless Manly increase his deal).

“Not to turn up to training, not to give a f*** about the boys.
I’ve looked after him, gave him whatever he wanted as a kid. Always
made sure he didn’t want for anything.

‘’And so I said to him, ‘mate, you know what we’ve (the senior
playing group) sacrificed to stay together, to be successful. Your
time will come’, and he just looked me straight in the eye and went
‘nah, not turning up’.

‘’So I just went ‘f*** you’. I’ve walked out and went to Tooves
(Geoff Toovey) and said, ‘don’t give him any money. You’ve got him
by the balls. If he doesn’t turn up to training, fine him’. And
Tooves just succumbed to the board, next thing we know he’s up
around the $500,000 mark after being on $50,000.

‘’So that’s where Tooves stopped worrying about the players and
started worrying about his own back. The board wanted Cherry-Evans.
If you’re a coach and you want a player you get him - that was
Dessie’s motto. He got every player he wanted and the board
listened.

‘’Tooves chose one side of the board over the players and that’s
where he lost me.”

Watmough identifies Stewart’s cold-shouldering as the beginning
of the end.

The club failed to make a decent offer for the second-rower,
sending Manly’s senior group into flames as they used the media to
voice their fury.

Hell, they even put a gag on Watmough who was handed a media ban
for saying Steve Matai should be granted a release after years of
loyal service for a chance to earn decent cash elsewhere.

Things turned that ugly that the former Blues and Kangaroos
second-rower even dipped into his own pocket to find an escape
route.

‘’For Glenn to get shown the door, that was a slap in the face
for all of us that had sacrificed to stay together,’’ Watmough told
the Hello Sport Podcast.

‘’I paid to get out of the club to be honest to you. I paid
$100,000 to get out of that place because I didn’t like how they
treated everyone.

‘’We understand that people have to change, clubs have to change
and move on, but Manly would have had another 10 years of success
albeit if that side of the board wasn’t in charge.

‘’From what we heard, they offered Glenn a deal and we didn’t
know it but we came out in the media and backed him up and were
sort of fuming that they could offer these sort of other people,
with nowhere near the calibre of Glenn, decent deals and then not
Glenn.

‘’Then apparently behind the scenes they pulled the deal because
we blew up and then they moved Glenn on.’’

Just this year, Cherry-Evans opened up on his side of the story,
revealing the drama created an unpleasant environment to say the
least.

"For a small portion of my career a couple of years ago, the
enjoyment went away," Cherry-Evans told NRL.com.

"It was pretty well documented, a bit of a fallout among the
playing group.

"It was uncomfortable at times to go to training, there's
nowhere to hide."

Not much has changed.

The chaotic scenes have continued under Cherry-Evans’ leadership
in 2018, evolving from the demoralising Jackson Hastings situation
that brought the club’s culture into disrepute.

Players taking sides. Internal conflict. Sounds similar,
right?

Watmough asked fans to open their eyes and dissect the ongoing
trend.

"It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see he’s probably pissed
one too many people off in the game. I think people are starting to
see it for what it is,’’ he said.

‘’They thought we were the issue and then we left. Then the next
year Tooves was the issue, then they got rid of him. And then all
of a sudden poor Jackson Hastings.

‘’Look, I don’t really know the guy. I know people have
different opinions but they, because Cherry-Evans didn’t like him,
they f**** bullied him into a corner which was pretty poor on the
club’s behalf I think.

‘’…Cherry-Evans was in the thick of it then. There’s only so
much one person can be involved before people start to
realise.’’

Out of breath after letting his emotions free, the 34-year-old
saved his lightest take for last as he touched on Des Hasler’s
departure to the Bulldogs.

While a large chunk of the 2011 playing group have blocked
Hasler’s number, Watmough insists he holds no grudges but believes
the ordeal could have been handled better.

“Des left on his own terms. The way Des left it probably wasn’t
the best. It was the week after (Manly’s 2011 Grand Final) but the
way it happened was that he blamed everyone,’’ he said.

‘’If he had have just said, ‘I’ve been offered $1.5 million, I’m
going’, we would have said ‘Good, go’. But he blamed everyone else.
So we as players were furious and said ‘well, we’ll go attack them
(the board) now’.

‘’Then what we found out in the aftermath, well Dessie’s Dessie.
He’s always going to look after Dessie. He’d agreed a long, long
time ago and actually tried to stay at Manly because they’d offered
him more money, but in the end couldn’t.

‘’But the way he went about it he sort of burnt a lot of
bridges. I know certain players won’t speak to him again. I’ve got
no issues (with Des) at the end of the day. I haven’t seen him
since he left.’’

Sook, whinger, grouch – call him what you want. Watmough doesn’t
care, he just wants to make sure his story gets told.

‘’Look people are going to hate me for coming out and saying
this but people have to know, at the end of the day, what the real
situation was,’’ Watmough said.

‘’I didn’t even want to speak about it but there comes a time
when I feel that I had to. I thought f*** it I’m not going to hold
onto it anymore.

‘’I seriously hold onto that everyday and that’s the only thing
that has stopped me from letting go of everything. Because I
haven’t told my side. The real side that people didn’t get to
hear.

‘’I feel a weight being lifted off my chest. I’m being honest.
I’ve just been holding onto that."